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Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

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Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#111

Post by dragonwriter »

crmd wrote: post #110
jacobr1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is a tradeoff. Not all actions constitute speech. Supporters of Russian actions should be able to spout off their horrible thoughts, but that doesn't mean companies the need to sell their goods or services to Russia. The two categories of acts aren't the same.

Agree no one should be compelled to sell software to Russia, but the topic at hand is the dangers of normalizing national restrictions in open source licensing. Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict?

> Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict?

Wouldn't “Israeli” be the more appropriate analog here?

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#112

Post by crmd »

dragonwriter wrote: post #111
crmd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree no one should be compelled to sell software to Russia, but the topic at hand is the dangers of normalizing national restrictions in open source licensing. Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict?

> Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict? Wouldn't “Israeli” be the more appropriate analog here?

I avoid online discussions about Israel, but I often hear activists state that American Jewish people are complicit in the Palestinian Conflict if their congregations provide economic support to “Zionist causes” such as birthright and financial aid to North African diaspora. My position is that it’s in the best interest of free software to allow free software to be used by anyone, even people who you hate or disagree with.

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#113

Post by joshmanders »

chii wrote: post #81
joshmanders wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Like the whole open source movement was a massive political thing... Open source by definition is political.

but software licenses are related to the field of software and freedom _within_ software. I'd hate to say it, but including other political ideologies into the software license is making it more political. If the author of the software wants to, he is within his rights, but i think it's the wrong platform to try to voice his opinion. A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author b…

> A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power.

I disagree, I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform.

Anyone who thinks using your platform regardless of the context is bad are people who feel inconvenienced, threatened or annoyed by said message in which case, congratulations you successfully achieved your goal.

If Colin Kaepernick didn't use his platform as an NFL player and instead did something else like I don't know, stood outside his political offices holding a sign, would have had dramatically less impact and probably wouldn't have gone anywhere, but he used his platform and now look, we're still talking about it, black lives mattering, and all the messages he was intending to send what 4 years later?

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#114

Post by igetspam »

the-lazy-guy wrote: post #28
igetspam wrote: post #12

It sucks to have to agree with someone that you don't fundamentally agree with but I think the author of the PR is correct. This is a modification of the Apache license and while I appreciate and support their stance, it does seem to mean that the license is non compliant. I support anyone's desire to protest things (no matter which side I'm on) but you can't just make up your own rules.

How exactly do you fundamentally disagree with the author of the PR? He literally did no statements beyond saying that this is not an Apache License anymore.

You're right. I disagree with those who would not accept the license modifications as truth because I support them but the author of the PR did not state their political stance.

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#115

Post by [deleted] »

oauea wrote: post #32
igetspam wrote: post #12

It sucks to have to agree with someone that you don't fundamentally agree with but I think the author of the PR is correct. This is a modification of the Apache license and while I appreciate and support their stance, it does seem to mean that the license is non compliant. I support anyone's desire to protest things (no matter which side I'm on) but you can't just make up your own rules.

> but you can't just make up your own rules Sure you can. Your project, your rules.

[deleted]

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#116

Post by raffraffraff »

sofixa wrote: post #47
raffraffraff wrote: post #26

Ugh. Lookit: it sucks to be forced to say anything at all , whether you agree with it or not. One thing I can say for certain is that my employer (and probably yours ) is only into virtue signalling when it's 100% safe, everyone else is doing it and it has zero negative repercussions. I don't get to decide what my employer's stance is on licenses. I guarantee you that many people will end up moving away from these mo…

FYI this is not an employer doing the "virtue signaling", it's the individual contributor to the project.

I know that. What I'm saying is that most employers are interested in virtue signalling, as long as it's a nice visible logo at a rainbow parade. That's cheap PR. But give them a legal headache and see how long they're willing to keep it up. My point is that many employers (certainly mine) would tell me to find another module or write my own, if they see this.

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#117

Post by jacobr1 »

crmd wrote: post #110
jacobr1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is a tradeoff. Not all actions constitute speech. Supporters of Russian actions should be able to spout off their horrible thoughts, but that doesn't mean companies the need to sell their goods or services to Russia. The two categories of acts aren't the same.

Agree no one should be compelled to sell software to Russia, but the topic at hand is the dangers of normalizing national restrictions in open source licensing. Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict?

I think the resolution of the terraform-aws-eks example that started this discussion is a good one. The maintainer clearly stated his political in the README, but left the license alone without a country specific restriction. This is what I meant by separation between the speech, and commercial or OSS distribution.

> Would you be comfortable with an open source license that bans Jewish users because of the Palestinian conflict?

Comfortable is a loaded term here. No I wouldn't, but I could break that down to: Is it something that a maintainer should ...

* legally be able to do - YES

* consider likely to make a difference in the conflict - NO

* consider to be good for the OSS ecosystem - NO

* consider ethically wise - NO

* still consider an OSS license - NO, but I think one could be constructed that had more generic restrictions against human rights abuses, or use by militaries, or similar general restriction. Would that meet OSI definitions? Not sure I care, but I wouldn't be too concerned even I think it would be better to keep things simple.

It is worth noting that OSS distributed from the US as part of sale, still is subject to EAR. While we benefit from having a global community of OSS, local laws still apply in any number of circumstances.

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#118

Post by chii »

joshmanders wrote: post #113
chii wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but software licenses are related to the field of software and freedom _within_ software. I'd hate to say it, but including other political ideologies into the software license is making it more political. If the author of the software wants to, he is within his rights, but i think it's the wrong platform to try to voice his opinion. A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author b…

> A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power. I disagree, I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform. Anyone who thinks using your platform regardless of the context is bad are people who feel in…

> I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform.

you think that because the message resonates with you. You happen to agree with the ideology being presented.

If you truly are one who would allow such political messages to be sent via an unrelated platform, then you are also implicitly in agreement to acts of terrorism. After all, the terrorists are just using such platforms to spread their political message too. Of course, i can hear the rebuts - that terrorists aim to kill, and they don't deserve to say spread their opinions that way. But who's to judge? Who's to say that it is not right for them to do it, but for some inexplicable reason, it is right when the opinion being said is in line with your own?

I'm not one for making the world any more political than it already is. I disagree with the russian invasion of ukraine, but any action i take would be via my gov't - e.g., my taxes go towards paying for aid to ukraine, or charities donating.

Re: Terraform-AWS-modules/Terraform-AWS-eks transitions to non-free license

#119

Post by jhugo »

nrmitchi wrote: post #105
jhugo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the downvote and the no-content comment, I guess? I've worked with numerous large Terraform configurations, and the ones that use terraform-aws-modules are harder to maintan, have more churn due to updates of the modules, and are more divorced from the actual underlying cloud resources due to random decisions made by the module authors. I really struggle to understand the reason for using the modules rathe…

I will enlighten you. > serve very little purpose other than to add a dependency and create problems You're expressing your opinion as fact in a way that only serves to degrade people who don't agree with you. Obviously these modules serve a purpose, otherwise the repositories would not have hundreds-to-thousands of github stars/forks, and people would not be arguing about a license change on the front page of HN.

> Obviously these modules serve a purpose, otherwise the repositories would not have hundreds-to-thousands of github stars/forks, and people would not be arguing about a license change on the front page of HN.

Have you worked with the modules in question? If you have, please enlighten me to the obvious purpose that they serve. As I pointed out, I've worked with them extensively, and worked on comparable configurations that avoid them, and they create many problems (the wrappers introduce their own churn due to version updates, and often have mistakes in their interpretation of the underlying resources, etc) while solving virtually none. Several orgs I've worked for actually ban these and similar external modules due to these problems.

It's telling that the only substantive reply I received merely points out the number of stars rather than actually explaining why people should use these wrappers.

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